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Ionic liquids for the inhibition of gas hydrates. A review

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Abstract

The formation of gas hydrates is a major issue during the operation of oil and gas pipelines, because gas hydrates cause plugging, thereby disrupting the normal oil and gas flows. A solution is to inject gas hydrate inhibitors such as ionic liquids. Contrary to classical inhibitors, ionic liquids act both as thermodynamic inhibitors and hydrate inhibitors, and as anti-agglomerates. Imidazolium-based ionic liquids have been found efficient for the inhibition of CO2 and CH4 hydrates. For CO2 gas hydrates, N-ethyl-N-methylmorpholinium bromide showed an average depression temperature of 1.72 K at 10 wt% concentration. The induction time of 1-ethyl-3-methyl imidazolium bromide is 36.3 h for CO2 hydrates at 1 wt% concentration. For CH4 hydrates, 1-ethyl-3-methyl-imidazolium chloride showed average depression temperature of 4.80 K at 40 wt%. For mixed gas hydrates of CO2 and CH4, only quaternary ammonium salts have been studied. Tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide shifted the hydrate liquid vapour equilibrium to 1.56 K at 10 wt%, while tetrabutylammonium hydroxide showed an induction time of 0.74 h at 1 wt% concentration.

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Abbreviations

AILs:

Ammonium-based ionic liquids

DSC:

Differential scanning calorimetry

GHI:

Gas hydrate inhibitor

ILs:

Ionic liquids

KHI:

Kinetic hydrate inhibitor

LDHIs:

Low-dose hydrate inhibitors

MEG:

Monoethylene glycol

mf:

Mass fraction

PVCap:

Polyvinyl caprolactam

PVP:

Polyvinylpyrrolidone

QAS:

Quaternary ammonium salts

RIP:

Relative inhibition power

SNG:

Standard natural gas

sI, sII, sH:

Structure I, II, H

THI:

Thermodynamic hydrate inhibitor

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Acknowledgements

Authors would acknowledge the support by MyPAIR-PHC-Hibiscus Grant [MyPAIR/1/2020/STG05/UNIM//1] and Fundamental Research Grant Scheme, Malaysia [FRGS/1/2019/STG05/UNIM/02/2]. The authors acknowledged support from the Hibiscus Hubert Curien Partnership founded by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Ministère de l'Europe et des Affaires étrangères) and the French Ministry of Research (Ministère de l’Enseignement Supérieur, de la rechercher et de l'innovation) Author would also like to thank Universiti Teknologi Petronas, Bandar Seri Iskandar, Malaysia, for supporting the research work. Authors are also thankful to the Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation, Malaysia, for the technical support. The authors would also like to acknowledge UCSI University Research and Innovation Grant [REIG-FAS-2020/028] for supporting the research work.

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Correspondence to Dzulkarnain B. Zaini or Pau Loke Show.

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Ul Haq, I., Qasim, A., Lal, B. et al. Ionic liquids for the inhibition of gas hydrates. A review. Environ Chem Lett 20, 2165–2188 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10311-021-01359-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10311-021-01359-9

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